Art Genève

Art Genève
Sur-mesure

Art Genève / Sur-mesure

A selection of singular works and large-format installations presented by galleries and selected by curator Nicolas Trembley.

FOOD

For Art Genève, curator Nicolas Trembley has selected six videos exploring the theme of food. The relationship between food and contemporary art is rich and multifaceted, with food serving both as a subject and a medium in artistic practices. It often carries symbolic meanings linked to culture, politics, identity, and memory, allowing artists to comment on social issues or use food itself as material.

Six video works are projected in a continuous loop on six individual walls forming a hexagon. The selection offers diverse artistic perspectives, beginning with historical footage by Gordon Matta-Clark documenting FOOD, the restaurant he co-founded in 1971 in New York, which also lends its name to the program. In response, Jasmine Gregory’s 2024 performance, staged in a Zurich grocery store, addresses themes of consumer culture and social inequalities.

The relationship between food and the body can be political, as seen in Paul McCarthy’s 1974 video Heinz Ketchup Sauce or Pilar Albarracín’s Tortilla a la Española from 1999. Finally, cultural constructs and the media’s portrayal of food are humorously addressed in Christopher Williams’ Betty Bossy cooking class or in the philosophical reflections on fat in the new episode of The Restaurant by artists Will Benedict and Steffen Jørgensen. Finally, the giant sculpture of a ladle and a spoon by David Nash completes the installation.

Gordon Matta-Clark, FOOD
Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

Exhibited works

Christopher Williams

Supplement 04, 2004
Video, 332 min. 17


Galerie Mezzanin, Geneva, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, David Zwirner, New York / Paris / London / Hong Kong

Will Benedict and Steffen Jørgensen

The Restaurant (Season 2), 2021-2024
3 épisodes, vidéo, 74 min.


A production of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève for BIM 2021 with the support of the FCAC and FMAC. Collection of the Contemporary Art Funds of the City and Canton of Geneva (FMAC & FCAC).

Gordon Matta -Clark

FOOD, 1972
43 min, noir et blanc, audio, film 16 mm transféré en vidéo.
Caméra et son : Robert Frank, Suzanne Harris, Gordon Matta-Clark, Danny Seymour.
Montage : Roger Welch – EAI


Mamco, Genève, Electronic Arts Intermix et David Zwirner, New York / Paris / London / Hong Kong

Paul McCarthy

Heinz Ketchup Sauce, 1974
single-channel video, colour 17:30 min


Courtesy de l’artiste

Pilar Albarracín

Tortilla a la española, 1999
Vidéo, 6 min. 07


Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois

Jasmine Gregory

One Time Shot, 2024
Video, 5 min. 1


Galerie Karma International

David Nash

Ladle and Spoon, 2018
Bronze, 296 x 166 x 100 cm


Galerie Lelong & Co.

Dorier x Art Genève: A Partnership in Creativity

As specialists in audiovisual design and production, Dorier is committed to transforming ideas into impactful experiences. This year, we are proud to partner with Art Genève, bringing our expertise in sound, lighting, and visual storytelling to support an event that celebrates art in all its forms.

The works of the 2024 edition

artgeneve2024_sur-mesure_Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, metapanorama I,II & III_Crated by Nicolas Trembley_Photo Julien Gremaud (17)

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Born in Strasbourg in 1965, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster lives and works in Paris.

metapanorama I, II & III
2023
Triptych composed of 3 panels
UV pigment print on hand-printed linen
315 x 750 cm
Courtesy of Albarrán Bourdais

metapanorama I, II & III is a stand-alone part of the Alienarium 5 installation, presented by the artist at London’s Serpentine Gallery in 2022. The triptych is taken from a panorama in the form of a trompe-l’oeil circular collage; it envisages an interconnected meeting between humans, aliens and non-humans that takes place on a satellite close to Earth. It is an utopian space that depicts a peaceful coexistence, quite different from the normal representations of violent or dominating relationships that populate science fiction. Within this ideal “city” are themes closest to the artist’s heart: an exploration of past and future eras, intellectual movements, behaviour and identity. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster creates environments in which her pantheon is intertwined with various references: literature with feminist Annie Besant, architecture with Steiner’s Goetheanum, art with Alfred Kubin and Emma Kunz, in addition to political ideas surrounding the concept of anti-war demonstrations. In Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s own words: “if aliens were to arrive right now, Earth as we know it would completely change.”
artgeneve2024_sur-mesure_Blair Thurman,Mexico Set_Crated by Nicolas Trembley_Photo Julien Gremaud (11)

Blair Thurman

Born in New Orleans in 1961, Blair Thurman lives and works in New York.

Mexico Set
2022
Acrylic on canvas
19 panels
184 x 1200 x 200 cm

Obut (Indiana)
2022
Buggy Parasols, light garlands, armchair and painting
210 x 275 x 160 cm
Courtesy of Xippas

This collection of colour-filled canvases and buggy were specifically created for the artist’s 2022 solo exhibition at Frac Normandie, which was called Spook Rock Road (Kasino-Kut). This was a reference to a road in the USA that is home to various mythological rocks important to Native American culture.

The painting Mexico Set is composed of 19 monochrome acrylic panels in bright colours. Put together in a modular fashion, they evoke an environment that is reminiscent of the outer reaches of a racing track. The colours themselves draw inspiration from the chromatic palette used in comic strips from the 1960s and 1970s.

The buggy, which is called Obut (Indiana), is an all-terrain vehicle decorated with parasols and proudly bearing the name of the state in the south of the USA where the famous Indianapolis racetrack can be found. The artist also sees the buggy as a form of three-dimensional painting, explaining it as follows: “I liked to have the 2 systems of painting overlap, as a counterpoint – they complement each other”.

Blair Thurman has developed a fascination for the world of the automobile. Woven throughout his work that sits at the crossroads of geometrical abstraction of the 1950s and 1960s, Pop Art and “Americana”, he puts forwards expressions of American folk and vernacular popular culture.

artgeneve2024_sur-mesure_Oli Epp, Ninth Life_Crated by Nicolas Trembley_Photo Julien Gremaud (16)

Oli Epp

Born in London in 1994, Oli Epp lives and works in London.

Ninth Life
2022
Painted resin
273 x 460 x 180 cm
Courtesy of Semiose

This sculpture – the first to be created by the artist – was showcased at his solo exhibition, which took place at the Semiose Gallery in 2022 and was entitled Nine Lives. The name of the exhibition is in reference to the myth that cats have numerous lives and this piece is named after the last of them: Ninth Life. The slide is inspired by the feline form; a recurring figure in the artist’s work, it is chosen for its popularity in videos that go viral on social networks.

Oli Epp’s work, which primarily focuses on painting, handles themes connected to tragicomic aspects of life and their complexity in this digital age. The artist believes that consumerism, entertainment and an overconsumption of images can result in addiction and anxiety. Each visitor is invited to make use of and play with the cat-slide, which cuts a slightly distressing figure imbued with a sado-masochistic aesthetic.

This is how the audience become actors and stakeholders in the work, transforming it into a playground within a space that is first and foremost artistic.

artgeneve 2024_Paul McCarthy, White Snow Dwarf, Grumpy_photo Julien Gremaud

Paul McCarthy

Born in Salt Lake City in 1945, Paul McCarthy lives and works in Los Angeles.

White Snow Dwarf, Grumpy
2016
Bronze
190.5 x 152.4 x 149.9 cm
Courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Since the 1960s, Paul McCarthy has been looking into taboos and archetypes within American popular culture. Coloured with both humour and sarcasm, the focus of his work lies in the repressed psychological implications of cultural representations of the American dream.

White Snow Dwarf, Grumpy is a portrait of Grumpy, one of the seven dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This sculpture is part of a series of works that feature a number of characters to be found in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, an iconic symbol of the Walt Disney empire. By changing and distorting Grumpy’s face to the point of grotesqueness, McCarthy presents a critique of the superficiality of mass culture and consumerism. He also puts forward a challenge to Disney’s idealised notions of an innocent childhood.

McCarthy’s subversive works look to deconstruct symbols that are familiar to us, instead revealing darker and increasingly complex facets of our society of spectacle and the human psyche.

For McCarthy, nightmares are often the true ending to fairy tales, while entertainment in the vein of a Disneyland theme park is often solely for the purpose of achieving economic ends.

artgeneve2024_sur-mesure_Crated by Nicolas Trembley_Photo Julien Gremaud (9)

Joana Vasconcelos

Born in 1971 in Paris, Joana Vasconcelos lives and works in Lisbon

Valkyrie Mumbet, 2020
Handmade woollen crochet, Azorian lace, assorted fabrics including capulana, velvets, cotton and polyester, ornaments, pom-poms, LED, inflatable, fans, microcontrollers, power supply unit, steel cables.
900 x 1700 x 1600 cm
Courtesy Gowen

This imposing textile work hung from the ceiling was created in 2020 for the inauguration of the Mass Art Museum in Boston. Forming part of a series developed by the artist over the last fifteen years, it is called Valkyrie in honour of the goddesses of Norse mythology. Valkyrie Mumbet pays tribute to Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman, who was the first African-American slave to win a legal battle in 1781 that secured her freedom.

Moving beyond the playful, colourful and sparkling appearance, this work makes direct references to the colonialist history of Portugal and the African slave trade to Brazil. As well as embroidery, lace, crochet and pompoms, the sculpture is created using capulana, a fabric used by women in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony that was the birthplace of the artist’s parents. For the artist, these capulanas are the perfect illustration of the fluidity of cultures, reflecting a complex history that is interwoven with cultural exchanges that span both continents and centuries.

This work also forms part of a quest to discover traditionally feminine craft techniques, delving into personal and collective stories of women’s history. In the eyes of the artist, Valkyrie Mumbet is a symbol of freedom, representing the capacity of women to change their own lives by their very actions.

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